growing baby

he can’t do the talk, so he won’t do the walk
he’s no longer a lump, but he still just can’t jump
but he’s listened to truth, and he’s gotten a tooth
no more quiet all day — he just babbles away
and himself to defend, he has learned how to stand
and while learning to fall, he had started to crawl

In all seriousness, the boy made some serious progress in the last two weeks all of a sudden. He’s started babbling (pretty much sounding like “blahblahblah”, or “mehmehmeh”), and within the last week his first tooth had come in.

In the last week he has also started getting very serious about crawling and standing. On the crawling he’s still taking baby, uhh, scoots, translating himself horizontally by about a half a meter at the most. Still, it’s nice to see him be able to modify his surroundings at will, moving from playmat to blanket with toys and back according to his interests.

Mateo’s always been somewhat interested in standing up. Since a few months ago he had been reaching out to us and complaining until we stood him on his feet, optionally jumping him up and down. A few weeks ago he’s started to sit up, get on his knees, and reach out for us. If he finds something to hold on to — like our limbs or bodies, if we’re lying on the floor, he’ll pull himself into a standing position and then stand around holding on to us. About a week ago, though, he really started to take this to the next level — he started letting go. It was way too early for him, and he pretty much invariably lost his balance and fell backwards (to be caught by us) or forwards back onto the limb or body part he was holding onto before. More recently — this weekend — he had managed to learn some balance, however. Several times in a row he’s been able to let go and maintain balance, the longest so far being about 9 seconds. During these 9 seconds he’s actively adjusting his balance, and paying attention to standing, until eventually he can’t correct for some major imbalance anymore and starts tumbling (again, to be caught).

I find this completely fascinating.